Graduate Students' Attitudes and Anxiety toward Two Required Courses: Career Development and Tests and Measurement.

VanZile-Tamsen, Carol; Boes, Susan R.

Graduate students face numerous sources of anxiety. In order to explore students' stressors, student attitudes and anxiety toward two mandatory graduate counseling courses are examined here. All participants were students enrolled in either the Career Development or the Tests and Measurement course during the summer quarter (N=43; Mean Age=33 years). Pre- and post-test design was analyzed separately for the two courses. The results suggest that the greater the number of quarter hours completed, the greater the pre-course anxiety about course requirements. The findings suggest that, for the Career Development course, students may experience less anxiety of they enroll in this class earlier in their programs. For Tests and Measurements, results indicate that students probably would feel anxiety regardless of when they took this course, but by taking it early in their program, they could avoid making this course the final hurdle for graduation. Implications of findings for instructors, advisors, and students are discussed. (EMK)